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BRUSSELS — The European Commission is accusing the British financial firm ICAP of collusion, saying it tried to fix a benchmark interest rate tied to the yen.

The move is part of continuing efforts by regulators to punish banks and brokers that they say participated in rigging rates that help determine the borrowing costs for trillions of dollars in loans, credit cards and mortgages.

“The commission has concerns that ICAP may have been involved in cartels concerning yen interest rate derivatives as a facilitator,” the commission’s competition officials said in a statement. The brokerage firm “may have breached E.U. antitrust rules by facilitating several cartel infringements,” it said.

On Tuesday, ICAP said in a statement that it “does not believe that it has breached any applicable E.U. competition law” and that it “will defend itself against these allegations vigorously.”

In December, the European Commission fined a group of global financial institutions a combined 1.7 billion euros, or about $2.3 billion, to settle charges that they improperly influenced the London interbank offered rate, or Libor, as it relates to the Japanese yen, and the euro interbank offered rate, or Euribor.

That was the largest combined penalty ever levied by the European competition authorities.

ICAP also said that one of its subsidiaries had already settled allegations that “relate to the same underlying matters” with United States and British regulators in September 2013 concerning yen rates.

In those cases, ICAP paid fines totaling $87 million. Regulators said the firm’s employees had altered the reported figures from which Libor is derived in exchange for promises of curry meals, steaks, a Ferrari and financial payments.

In the case announced Tuesday, ICAP has the opportunity to review documents gathered as part of the commission’s investigation, reply in writing to the accusations and request a hearing before representatives of the European Commission and national competition authorities.

Under the European Union procedures, settlement discussions must be started before the charges are issued for companies involved in cartels to be eligible for a discount on any eventual fine. But the European Commission said Tuesday that no such talks were underway with ICAP, and that the investigation was being conducted under a “non-settlement” procedure. That suggests that ICAP, like some of the banks in rate-rigging cases, could eventually face a significant fine if the commission does find wrongdoing.

The commission can impose fines in such cases of up to 10 percent of a company’s annual worldwide sales, but penalties rarely go that high.